2021-June

 

At Nat and Scott's wedding, a good time had by all like 200 guests. Talk about lucky timing, between two waves of Covid, and it was down around zero cases at this time...

What happens when you let the kids have a go with the camera? Everyone smiles when a littly is snapping!

Amber and Allison at Scot and Nat's

Me and Tony at the wedding

Ollie outside the church after

Lou after the ceremony.

Max getting his best angle??

Lucas can see the bride is coming in at last.

Scott waits at the altar.

Before the ceremony with Lou, Lola, Holly, Charlie, Tony and Vonne.

Me and the boys getting there by train.

Our dog is the most thoughtful dog in the world. Here she concentrates on a tennis ball.

At Fil's place for lunch with the fam.

We got a message delivered to our doorstep asking if we'd had the same troubles? You bet!

Me, Irfan, Danesh, Ziad, Sen, Arijit, Sherry, Assanga, Syed out for another massive multicutural experience

This time we went to Burwood for a special Chinese restaurant. I think the food is from the North. It was excellent, huge serves, need to go again, and explore the alleys nearby packed with little food booths, just like an overseas market. Amazing all these places, and I had no idea all these places were there, right nearby.

Marie, Lola, Anna, and Lou at the Country and Inner Western at Sydney Park. Tex Perkins did Johnny Cash songs, v excellent. Kasey Chambers was pretty good, along with a few other bands.

Back to the wedding of Scott and Nat.

Managed to get out with some local guys; Abramo, Michael, Owen and Mark at the Oxford Tavern, former topless bar, now a hipster hang.

2021-May

 

The animals wait around for dinner. All are getting on fine now!

Happy birthday Lou you glorious monkey! We had some old friends from North Sydney over, and some new local friends as well. A nice time had apart from Goldie growling and nearly biting one kid. 

We pranked Louis lol. There were two packets. We said, if you get the biscuits first, then that's your lucky birthday gift. If you get the phone, then lucky you, enjoy a mobile phone! He picked the biscuits first. He got the phone as well of course, and he liked the biscuits anyway.

Marie putting some extra coats of clear Cutek on the pagola. Super nice job Vince, thanks a million, we owe you. A brilliant job, looks so nice.

and I'm brewing beer. This is the first batch, under the careful(?) eyes of the boys, though they're not looking at the bottle bubble. 

Anyway, it was pretty nice. Loooking forward to some slightly warmer weather so I can drink the eco friendly way.

Congrats to our Lou who smashed it in the cross country, like about 3kms or something? 2nd place, a major boost in the gene pool as I always came around about last.

Louis lapping the competition. Nice run Lou, imagine if you trained for it!

Eid Mubarak! The end of Ramadan, and everyone is going nuts. In Lakemba, there were people just all over the place (covid was well under control at this time). We wandered up and down main street, got some Briyani, some bbq skewers, and a dessert that I can't remember the name of but is offered everywhere. Oh, the mango Lassis were popular with the kids as well. Lordy what a good night.

IN the Briyani place on the corner near the train station. Ate way too much but only ordered like 4 mains between everyone. Was magically filling.

Our cat follows us when we go for a walk. She even went to the park one time and hung out near all the dogs.

2021-April

The "Causa" is the food the ladies of Peru served up to the revolutionaries when there was nothing to eat. It has tuna, potato on top, eggs, olive oil, chilli, limes, onion, mayo, avocado. Victory and independence followed.

To go with the Causa, Louis brought along Zombicide the board game, and stood at the head explaining all the details. Marie, Andrea, Claudia, Lou, Esteban and Akemi. I think victory followed here as well - it's a collaborative game where we all lose or we all win against the zombies.

Easter was at Tim and Zdenka's. I often forget to get some snaps at these things, except for this one: Ang, Gabrielle, Stephen and Alexandra.

At Skyzone with David, Laurens, Kevin, Esteban, Lou doing some dodgeball. We got some 3 month pass thing, so we've been going there a bit. Looks like excellent exercise.

Anna sold her place at Sans Souci (means no worries). We were helping move. Vince stored some stuff at his place and had to move this beast thing out to Jason's.

Pergola is coming along...

2021-March

Goldie is settling in very well. The cats both tolerate her fine, as long as she doesn't come too close - then it could be a swinging paw or a hiss.

We got the edges of the fireplaces done. Cost $1600 which is not bad but still a fair chunk of $$ given the average wage is like $90 grand.

Dinner with the work colleagues: Sherry, Syed Qaiser, Irfan, Danesh, Sen, Jesse, me, Amy, Rhianna, Maheera, Erandi, Arijit, Syed Hassan.

Jaime, me and the fearless pidgeon. Jaime is a professor in epidemiology but has zero interest in the prestige or any kind of fancy stuff. His family is from a fishing town north of Lima in Peru. His dad was a car mechanic. Seems him and his brother did pretty well.

Another leak in Oli's window. The sill is below the exterior masonry, so any ingress of water gets fed down to us. Pretty depressing having a waterfall in the dining area. They came and fixed it: which involved pumping in some silicone.

Ollie is doing really well in basketball. He doesn't practise besides the once off weekly session. The coach Gus told me the boys aren't very serious and he seems a bit annoyed, wondering what they're there for. I guess it's more for the fun than the hard work or drills.

Gus is from Argentina and played professional for a bit in Spain, but the competition was too fierce. It's funny playing with him. He's so kind, you'd never guess of his extremely high standard.

We picked up some wood ready for the new deck and pergola. The cats on top of the shed, if you can see that.

We popped down to Canberra for Leo's second birthday or some such, maybe just because we haven't all been there for a long while. 

We sat around, caught up and ate food.

2021-February

 

Tony's birthday, happy birthday Tony.

We got the fireplace side detail put back in. A shame that the wooden quads were still in there, so we could have slowly chipped them out again.

Super wonky work from the builder.

Went to Port Macquarie, Flynn's Beach for the weekend. A good time, apart from a bit of rain. Spent lots of time in the pool.

Went to dinner with the work guys to Star Kebabs in Auburn. What a multicultural feast and experience that place is. Restaurants all over the place.

We went to Jason's for Emilia's christening. Marie was chatting with him, saying we're going to be looking for a dog. Ollie really wants one. He said you can have that one. So that day, we got Goldie, a bowl, a lead, a bed and she's been here ever since.

Ollie's gamer desk turned out awesome - great job done Ollie, perfect shape, frame and nice soft cover.

Here is a bottle of gin, made in Australia, 1 pint 6 fluid ounces. Seems it may have come before 1966 when Oz went metric, and has been sitting in Mum's pantry for 53 odd years. Guess she didn't like gin.

Jack and Allie set off on their trip around Australia. Jack has been busy fixing all the problems in the motorhome. Seems production raced it a bit as demand is crazy while everyone cannot fly out of the country.

A collection of scissors etc from Mum's place. I found them in the garage. Some are really nice. The shoe horn is from some old shoe shop in Newtown. Zoom the pic to check it out.

Dog loves jumping at the hose.

The cats were not impressed for about a week. But now, they're used to her. Still zero love between them. Mumma cat hid behind our bed for a week. Now she can sleep even when the dog is nearby, as long as the dog is relaxing and not running around like a, yeah, mad dog. I keep saying No! when she jumps on me. Poor thing is very confused since I'm calling for her to sit. Jumping is too tempting.